Texas to get largest number of early-release convicts

Updated 1:58 pm, Friday, October 9, 2015

AUSTIN – Texas will get the largest number of convicts who are being released early from federal prisons to reduce overcrowding and shorten long drug sentences, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Officials said that 578 convicts to be released are to return to Texas, with Florida receiving 295 in the second-highest total.

The Texas influx from the first release of 6,000 felons was first reported by The Washington Post. Many of them who are set to be released between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2 will go to halfway houses and be placed on house arrest, according to officials.

Federal officials said Friday they could not immediately specify which Texas cities are destinations for the early-release convicts.

The early release that could result in more than 46,000 of the country's 100,000 drug offenders becoming eligible for shortened sentences comes after a decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an agency that sets policies on sentence lengths for federal crimes. It trimmed punishment for future drug offenders and made that change retroactive.

An additional 8,550 federal felons are expected to be released in a second wave by Nov. 1, 2016.

Shortening of drug sentences is part of a national trend to reverse lengthy federal punishments that were imposed starting in the 1980s, as Americans became frustrated with drug crimes and demanded tougher punishment. Texas and other states in recent years have begun a review of their drug-offender sentencing policies to get more convicts into treatment programs that will allow them to succeed on parole.

Texas prison officials have said no similar early-release of state convicts is planned.

A Victoria area man is among the federal prisoners scheduled for release on Nov. 1.

"His family contacted me and asked me to look into his case," said Van Cleave, whose practice is exclusively federal criminal defense.

Burley, 33, will be one of the offenders who will leave federal custody from a prison.

He now is at the Beaumont low-security facility and "only just found out in the last few days that his paperwork got processed," Van Cleave said. According to the Bureau of Prisons web site, Burley is set for release on Nov. 1.

"The biggest thing is when the ruling happened," Van Cleave said Friday. "If we'd filed six months sooner and the judge had granted the motion six months sooner, there would have been time for the Bureau of Prisons to process him into a halfway house."

Burley was among three defendants indicted in 2005 in a crack cocaine trafficking conspiracy in the Victoria area. All received initial sentences in 2006 of 14 to 17 years. Burley and another co-defendant had those terms reduced this year after their motions for retroactive recalculations were approved by U.S. District Judge John D. Rainey.

Burley's sentence already had been modified in 2012 to 13½ years. The latest order cut his time to 10 years and 10 months.

"He was clearly eligible," Van Cleave said. "He just fit the criteria for the two-level reduction. He was not restricted by mandatory minimums or any of the enhancements that would create an ineligibility situation. There wasn't any factor that would suggest that he should not get the reduction and there wasn't anything that made me think that we might not get this."

Van Cleave said the adjustment would have brought Burley to time served sooner but the retroactive releases cannot begin until Nov. 1.